Dysfunctional Feathers
by Lexi-wa
Summary: You've heard about Max and her story. Now experience a whole new one from the POV of four runaway screw-up experiments from the School. Each with their own different physical defect, they step out into a new world that will bring trouble. Complete OC's.
1. Chapter 1: The Turmoil Begins

**Well here's the first chapter of Dysfunctional Feathers, hope you love it as much as I do! I'm only uploading as long as people want me to… I LUV readers! Enjoy!**

**1**

Have you ever been in a situation where you know that you're doing something completely wrong, but do it anyway because you think it's fun and worthwhile? Yeah, well I have. Things aren't always rewarding these days.

Not that I would ever pass on something including explosions and close calls, but as I crouched there chained to the inside of a cage so that I couldn't try to bend the metal, I began to wonder about this speculation.

I heard my sister whisper something to me from the cage next to mine. "How are we supposed to get out of this one, Heather?"

While turning my head towards her, I frowned. "I don't know, Stella," I shrugged as a whitecoat stepped into the room. While the automatic door closed with a light _shhhhhh_, I went over everything that had happened before that very moment.

3 Months Earlier

The sun peeked over the hills to begin a brand new day. I, on the other hand, was in my dark room in bed, dreaming away. Suddenly, the light flicked on.

"Get up!" I heard Gwen—my other sister—yell. She left the room to go make breakfast while I groaned and fell off the bed in an attempt to wake up.

"Ow!" I rubbed my head where it had hit the ground, and my mind cleared up a bit. I stood up and turned off the lights once again. But instead of going back to bed, I opened the blinds a little bit, giving my room a different light. My walls were bathed in pastel blue, and the wooden floors became light brown. I shuffled to my dresser and put on jeans, a tank top and a jacket, both of which with two large cuts on the back for my wings. Yes, I have wings. Trudging down the hallway, I smelled bacon and eggs and I perked up a bit.

When I stepped into the kitchen, I came face to face with two of my sisters: Gwen and Aurora. Gwen, who has short, choppy brown hair, was flipping slices of bacon, while Aurora was scrambling at least twenty eggs on a giant pan. She has long, wavy strawberry blond hair that glows in the sunlight. Both of their wings were hanging out lazily. Gwen's are a dark, chocolate color, while Aurora's are white with a few golden speckles.

When Aurora caught sight of me, she turned to me quickly before I could sit down. "Go make sure Stella's getting up, will you?" I sighed, rolled my eyes, and turned right back around into the hallway.

I knocked on Stella's bedroom door, and heard a strangely muffled shuffling noise. "Are you awake?" I yelled into her room.

A muted, "Yeah," came out, and the door opened. Stella stood there with her dark eyes staring at me in annoyance. "I hate mornings." She mumbled as she walked past me towards the kitchen. I followed her to the table and we sat down together just as Aurora put the eggs on the table.

Just before we could begin attacking the platter, she sharply said, "Wait until everyone sits down." I sighed in frustration while Stella stared down the eggs as if they were her prey.

Aurora brought four cups to the table and filled them with orange juice. She sat down, eyeing Stella with her stern-looking bright blue eyes. Gwen set the plates on the table and—finally—served the bacon. Before she could even sit down and push her chair in, Stella grabbed as many pieces of bacon and eggs that she could with her hands, while the other three of us stared at her.

After a short silence, the rest of us attacked the food, gulping down all the orange juice as well. After breakfast was finished, I washed the dishes (it was my turn) and put them away, while my other three sisters were brushing their teeth. After I was finished, I brushed my teeth too, and put on some shoes.

Then the four of us, together, went out into the world. We live in a condo, with three bedrooms (Aurora and Gwen share one) and two bathrooms, with a kitchen. We don't like to call attention to ourselves, because we're a kind of "escapees" from the School.

We're four of those screw-up experiments, so we each have some flaw. Luckily, all of us have wings and can fly. But, as I said before, there's something wrong with each of us. For example, my body is very, _very_ sensitive to pain, so I always try to stay away from fights and violence. Aurora isn't very coordinated, and though she's a pretty good cook, that doesn't mean she never knocks over a glass of water or bumps tables when she's walking around. Gwen's skin is sensitive to intense heat or intense cold, and to top it off we all think she's partially bipolar. Finally, Stella has the running strength of a normal human—well a strong-ish normal human.

We live in Santa Cruz in California, but in a quiet area where no one will suspect four refugees to be hiding out. The school doesn't look for us, as long as we stay hidden.

"What were we going to do today again?" Stella complained before yawning and rubbing her eyes.

"To the ship docks. It's sushi day, remember?" Gwen said with an edge to her voice. "I can't wait. I just _love_ sushi."

"…Anyway, let's hurry or we won't make it to the bus." I said, and then we were on our way, rushing through the walkways and pushing past people rudely.

It was a good run between the different bus stops, but we had to stop two or three times for Stella to get some rest. I don't blame her, actually. It's a long way from our condo to the docks. We all sat at a table outside of a Starbuck's, ordering cold frappuccinos by the dozens. After a few of these stops, we finally arrived at the dock.

"Okay guys, you know the drill. We just have to go into storage building number seventeen, Aurora stands guard at the entrance while the other three of us go in and grab all the sushi we can. We all run when we're in the blind spot. Got it?" I laid out the plans quietly, and we all ran as fast as we could, right into one of the many identical warehouses.

As soon as we were in, I couldn't help but marvel at the endlessly immense size of the place. The bright lights, the mazes of crates stacked up more than twice as tall as me, and the smell of frozen foods made me think of all the times we'd stolen from these warehouses full of the gourmet we eat every day.

Of course, it wasn't always at the ship docks; the smell was the same yet different from the salt water. We've taken foods and more goods from trucks delivering to supermarkets, malls, even bookstores.

Stella shut the door almost completely, leaving a small crack where Aurora could tell us someone was coming. Meanwhile, Gwen was already opening the closest wooden box, revealing packaged sushi filled to the brim.

"Just one crate, right?" Gwen confirmed while stuffing boxes and boxes of sushi into a cheap-looking sack. Stella and I opened another crate, farther away, which contained packets upon packets of plain rice, grabbing all that we could with both hands and putting it in the same bag.

At that moment, I thought my life couldn't get much better. We had a nice house, no one searching for us from what we could see, and no one would ever catch us in the act of stealing all this food. That is, that's what I thought at the moment.

Because right then and there, I heard a startled cry—which I immediately registered as Aurora's voice—a heart-stopping metallic clang, and a thud.

I knew at that exact moment that my sister was hit on the head with a metal pole, that she was dead, and that whoever did it was coming for us next. The three of us froze in our tracks, all waiting for the door to open and our doom to come.

It felt like hours before I remembered to start breathing again, and we all shot each other glances of terror. After another minute, the door opened, and I knew we were all going to die today.

**Well there's the first chapter, review please! Tell me what you think, and I'll upload more! Have a sweet one!**

**~Lexxie**


	2. Chapter 2: Innocent yet Guilty

**2**

I squinted my eyes to try to see the shadow that now occupied the doorway. Seven zillion thoughts were flying through my head while everything suddenly slowed down. Is Aurora just out cold? If so, could we wake her up? Is she _dead_? How would we live without her? Who is this person who killed my sister, and _how can I kill them_?

Suddenly, my life was bounced back into reality, and time began to speed up to normal again. The three of us stared at the door, and my eyes finally adjusted.

The image before me was not what I'd expected at all. It was a guy who seemed about our age or older, with jet-black rugged hair. He wore baggy jeans and a white T-shirt that outlined his muscles, with a black leather jacket over it.

"I think we can take him," I whispered quietly, still frozen in place with a few rice packets in my arms.

"That won't be necessary," he said calmly. His voice was much deeper than I'd imagined it to be. "I'm not one of the security guards." He stepped forward with his arms up, and immediately the three of us dropped what we were holding and tensed ourselves to fight him if we had to.

"Don't come one step forward or you'll become packaged frozen sushi in three minutes." Gwen threatened, her voice as sharp as razor blades.

"Okay, let's all calm down." He said, and before one of us could interrupt, he broke off and said, "Your friend is fine; she just got a little scared and ran into a pole right after she turned around."

Immediately we all relaxed a little.

"Then what are you doing here?" Stella commanded.

"Just the same as you guys. It looks like you're stealing food, am I right?"

"That's none of your business." I snapped.

"Well, I have a car. Do you guys want me to drive your friend to the hospital?" He offered.

"No!" The three of us yelled all at once. Going to the hospital was _definitely_ on our list of things to never do, yet I think we made him suspicious. That was also on the exact same list.

"Okay… then." He said awkwardly. "Well, I think we should at least make sure she wakes up." With that, the four of us stepped out the open door and into the sunlight. There, on the ground, was the pale, crumpled figure of Aurora. Blood was seeping out of the side of her forehead, and we all gasped.

"As you can see," he explained, "she's still breathing, but her gash isn't doing good." Gwen picked up Aurora, and we all hurried back inside the storage unit as she placed her in a sitting position on the floor, leaning her back gently against a box.

"Someone pass me a bag of frozen rice." Gwen demanded, and I grabbed the nearest packet and handed it to her. She pressed it to Aurora's head, right where the wound was. Aurora began stirring, and then woke up the smallest bit, her eyelids drooping.

"Wha... Where am I…?" Aurora breathed, on the borderline of consciousness.

"You're safe, that's what's important." She replied.

"Gwen, you're getting the rice all bloody." Stella complained. I heard the stranger chuckle quietly from where he stood a few yards away, arms crossed over his chest.

"She'll be okay," I said to him, "right?"

"Oh yeah, she's gonna be fine." He assured me.

"What's your name?" I asked curiously.

"Zachary. Call me Zach, though. My parents must have been crazy when I was born to name me that, don't you think?" I shrugged awkwardly, and that ended the conversation. Strangely enough, the way he leaned against the wall, how he looked at the four of us… It almost made me suspicious of something. Maybe it was just the way he looked. It seemed almost like he'd stepped out of a TV show. None of us knew exactly how to act around guys, except for Aurora, which is because she watches at least three different television shows about boyfriend/girlfriend drama each week.

About a half an hour later, Aurora was finally up and awake, her head was bandaged, the bag was filled with the necessary foods, and it was about time to leave. We went out the door to leave after thanking Zach for helping Aurora come "back to life", and he said he had to leave too, for his own food.

After running past three warehouses on the way out and hiding behind a fourth, we stopped to take a short break. I looked around, and noticed there were only three of us.

"Where's Aurora?" I questioned.

"You guys forgot Aurora?" Stella snickered.

"You _knew_?" Gwen pressed.

"Of course I did. I notice everything."

"Then why didn't you _say_ anything?"

"I didn't know if you knew."

"Well you should have said some—"

"Enough! Let's just go back to get her and we'll be on our way home. Okay?" I interrupted. They nodded, and we scurried back to the immense building, just as Aurora opened the door.

"Oh, hey guys!" She said, shutting the door casually.

"What happened? Why didn't you come with us?" Gwen questioned.

"Zach wanted to talk to me." She explained. "_He asked for my phone number!_" She whispered excitedly.

I narrowed my eyes. "And you gave him our cell phone number?" I asked. The four of us share a phone, and I really didn't want some stranger calling it all the time, only to have Aurora snatch it up and talk into it 24/7

She turned to me, frowning. "It's the only cell we have. Don't worry, guys, I won't be constantly on the phone or texting him."

Stella sighed loudly. "Can we just go?" She complained.

"Stella's right, we should be on our way." Gwen said. And with that, we left, weaving through the streets to the bus stops once again, paying the fare from bus to bus, and soon we were home.

Right when Gwen opened the door and put the keys on the counter, Aurora ran to her shared room and snatched up the cell phone. "He texted me!" She squealed.

"Don't get too… comfy, Aurora. We have to keep our existence on the down-low, remember?" I said.

"Yeah, okay." She mumbled, not even bothering to tear her glance from the cell phone. I rolled my eyes and headed for my room.

After making my bed and closing the blinds to turn on the lights, I lied on my bed and pulled a blanket over myself. Before I knew it, I dozed off soundly, having the same feeling I'd had earlier today before Aurora hit her head. Yet some flashing red light in the corner was going off, telling me something was wrong. I reassured myself again and again that I just wasn't used to being near a guy, especially someone like Zach.

So I napped _mostly_ peacefully, waiting for dinner to be ready, hoping Aurora wouldn't talk about you-know-who too much.

**Well, there's the second chapter… Review it please peas! Hope you liked it!**

**~Lexxie**


	3. Chapter 3: Mistakes, Mistakes

**(Okay sorry for not updating for awhile, I just finished the school year… but now I'm back, and ready to update more! Hope more people read it too… And thanks to a certain skittle for ****giving me lotsa confidence that this was a great story! KEEP READING!)**

**3**

Lunch was unusually boring, with Gwen, Stella and myself death-staring at Aurora as she texted Zach every four seconds. I was glad to find out that she silenced the message ringtone, so we didn't have to hear the annoying cell phone make noises all day.

A fly buzzed around the plate of California rolls and landed on a lone grain of rice. Everything was silent except for the quiet tapping as Aurora typed. She was swallowed up in her own world, and we were less than thrilled.

"If you wouldn't mind texting at the table, Aurora, we'd all be able to eat peacefully." Gwen pointed out quietly. At first she didn't seem to hear her. Gwen cleared her throat loudly, and Aurora finally shut the phone and put it in her pocket.

"_Thank_ you, Gwen." Stella remarked, and we shoveled food onto our plates, all but Aurora, who was scowling at the food.

"I'm not hungry." She declared suddenly. Three pairs of suspicious eyes looked up at her as she stood up and took her plate to the kitchen, and then scurry into the hallway. I heard a door shut, and then we were accompanied by a deadly silence as the three of us stared into the hallway.

"Well, at least I can eat happily now." I mumbled as I stuffed a slice of tuna roll into my mouth, savoring the cold taste.

"I can't fathom what she sees in him," Gwen remarked, "to me he's just some messed-up guy who probably takes drugs." I stared down at my food, thinking everything through again.

"No," I said, "He gives me the impression that he's probably a lot smarter than he seems." Gwen stared at me and raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean by _that_?" Stella contemplated.

"Well," I explained, "he knew Aurora was alive right after she hit the pole, and he knew she didn't get some sort of life-threatening concussion."

"Anyone could figure that out," Gwen said defensively.

"Not in the three seconds before he came to tell us that she was fine. It was almost like he didn't even have to check to see if she was okay." I said.

"Whatever, let's just eat. I'm starving." Stella remarked, shoveling rice into her mouth with a pair of chopsticks.

"Good point, Stella. It's been a busy morning, but we still have things to do today. It's Tuesday. Sushi lunch, movie night." Gwen pointed out with a smile.

"It's only three o' clock." Stella said. "What do we do from now until seven?"

"We can go to the mall." Gwen said.

"I don't have any money." Stella replied.

"Well, we could just go window shopping." I silently ate my food, pretending not to notice, knowing a fight was coming on.

"No."

"Park?"

"No thanks, mom."

"Why can't you ever have an open mind, Stella, you always—"

I stood up, noisily taking my plate to the kitchen and washing it as quickly as possible. I didn't want to be in between them. I can never take sides. Silence drifted across the kitchen and dining room as I dried the plate off and scurried towards my room.

On the way, I heard Aurora talking to Zach on the phone. "Yeah, I wish I could see you right now, too." I heard mumbling on the other end, but I couldn't distinguish what he was saying. "Do you think they'd believe me? I'm not a good actor." Another pause. She didn't know I was listening. Aurora laughed, and said, "I'm not sure if that would work. I'll try it, though." I heard her getting up off the couch in her room, and head towards the door. I ran quickly to my room, closing the door silently just as hers opened. I heard her footsteps as she stepped into the bathroom.

_Aurora's skipping out movie night? It's her favorite thing to do during the week…_ I thought, and then I remembered Gwen and Stella arguing. _I don't want to give them more to worry about. I never heard what Aurora just said, _I convinced myself.

I fell back onto my bed, and the covers rippled as I tried to relax all my muscles and my mind. I decided I needed to have some privacy, but not just my room; I could still hear Gwen and Stella bickering. I quietly exited and snuck out the front door of the condo. I trudged onto the sidewalk, walking around the pile of leaves that fell from the tree they had planted in the front.

I planned to walk to the park, sit at a bench, and enjoy life as it passed by, but—of course—nothing ever goes as planned, ever. For any of us. What should have been a simple task became a nightmare. I took a few complicated shortcuts and somehow accidentally ended up in a different neighborhood, almost completely opposite from ours. The buildings were grey and depressing, sidewalk inhabited everything, and there was no grass or trees. Everything looked run-down, and I couldn't see a car that wasn't old and rusty. Graffiti of all colors was splashed on every wall, not one surface untouched.

As strange and foreign the neighborhood was, the people were even scarier. Partly torn, dirty clothing was worn by them. They were all sitting down on the stairs leading to a house or leaning against light posts. They all looked at me like they were the vultures, and I was some dying rodent. A few of the men stood up and began casually walking towards me, but for not one moment did I slow down or speed up my pace.

"Hey sugar, where you off to so quick?" One called out. Many of them who hadn't moved laughed loudly, and I pretended not to notice. I quickened my pace, but only the smallest bit, so no one would notice. Maybe if I could go into an empty alleyway and fly back home… _No._ I couldn't fly during the day. None of us could. It was a rule we'd established long ago. The School definitely hadn't forgotten we'd escaped, though it didn't seem they'd searched for us for awhile. Still, we stayed on guard, and I wasn't ready to break our rules.

Just as my thoughts analyzed everything that was going on, I heard someone call my name. A voice that was definitely familiar, but I wasn't excited to hear it. "Hey, Heather!" Zach called out again as he stepped towards me, waving a hand in front of my face in a teasing way.

"Ah!" I jumped a bit, not realizing it was him until I saw his face. My heart seemed to beat two or three times as fast as normal (from the surprise), and even when my heartbeat was normal, it was still pretty fast.

"Sorry if I scared you," Zach said, "but why are you all the way in this neighborhood? Do you live here?" He seemed puzzled looking around towards where I came from, and I shook my head. "Aw," he whined, "I was hoping to see Aurora later today, maybe."

"Nope, sorry. We watch a movie every Tuesday night, by ourselves." I explained, and his frown, well, turned frownier.

"I know," I heard him mumble under his breath, and I pretended not to hear him. "Well, do you need a ride home, then?" He said, gesturing his car, which surprisingly looked not so rusty and run-down as the other cars parked at the street.

As I was about to say 'No thanks,' I glanced around the block once more, having no idea where I was, and I wasn't quite ready to let the strange men following me take me home with them like a new puppy… Well, maybe more than just a puppy.

"Actually, I don't think I have a choice," I said, looking up at him since he was taller than me.

"Okay, then. Hop in this baby and we'll be on our way." He opened the passenger door for me, and I glared at him for half a second and climbed in. The interior looked almost brand new, with leather seats and nothing in the cup holders. After a quick look in the back, I realized I was way off the mark. It seemed that instead of buying a garbage can, he just bought a car. Crushed soda cans, cups from fast food restaurants, old magazines, a few pizza boxes, and mostly crumpled pieces of paper lined the back seats, in piles so high that I could only see out the back window, as if there were no places to sit in the back.

He jumped into the driver's seat, and upon noticing my gawking at the back of the car, he chuckled to himself and said, "Don't worry, you're not the only one to be amazed. I'm just too busy all the time to clean out the crap that's back there. Thank god it's not starting to stink up." We entered the address into his GPS, pulled away from the curb, and were back at the condo in less than ten minutes.

Zach walked me to the specific door, and knocked on it loudly. I felt chills go up my spine as I imagined Gwen getting up from her seat, looking through the peephole and wondering, _Now what the hell has Heather been up to? Now she showed him where we live? She is _so _going to get it!_

"I'll get it!" I heard Gwen's voice say, and I heard her footsteps come towards the door.

_God help me,_ I thought as I saw the peephole become occupied by an angry, astonished, hazel-green eye.

** Okay, that's it for this chapter… Review it! And please, I need more readers… if you're out there, anyone who reads this… REVIEW SO I KNOW YOU'RE READING IT …XD**

** ~Lexxie! **


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